


Taste of a Different Life (The Armors and Dragons Remix)

by navaan



Category: 1872 (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Secret Wars Battleworlds
Genre: Alcoholic Tony Stark, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America/Iron Man Relay Remix 2017, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, Foreshadowing, Kidnapped Tony Stark, M/M, Marvel Multiverse, Multiverse, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Prophetic Visions, Remix, Secret Wars (2015), Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9627509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Tony Stark knows about nightmares. There is a reason why he numbs himself to them whenever he can. But then things are taken out of his hands and he's faced with nightmares that are a little bit too real.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Weight of Armor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9541895) by [vorkosigan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorkosigan/pseuds/vorkosigan). 



If there was one thing to be said about Tony Stark then it was that he had always been smart enough to know better. He'd come out to the Frontier to outrun his ghosts, but that was the thing with ghosts: they weren't bound the way the living were and could easily follow and find you wherever you tried to hide. And in the end, he deserved his ghosts and he knew it. Forgetting would be denying his guilt. He hadn't settled in Timely to forget, but to bury himself where nobody would find him and be forgotten by the rest of the world, before his gifts could do any more harm.

Now he was on the right and wrong track all at once, he hazily thought, as he was roughly shoved down on a patch of hay in a corner of the mine shaft. He was wheezing. His lungs hurt more now that air was allowed to flow back through them than when he had thought he was going to suffocate and drown. Now the only thing that hurt worse were his wrists chafed raw by the coarse rope they’d been bound with.

"You'll build us the best colts you can imagine, Stark, and even better things," the roughest of the three bandits – faces hidden behind a red and blue kerchiefs - who were holding him here, spat. "An' you better start complying soon, because I'm losing my god given patience."

Tony let his head loll back to look up through half-lidded eyes. His clothes were wet and he’d started shivering a good while back. Not a minute ago the same patient gentleman had dunked him headfirst into a horse trough and held him there again and again and again. "Not building anyone anything. Tell Fisk that he's better off killin' me."

A fist connected with his temple and he went down.

But that didn't matter all that much.

“We're not with Fisk,” the brute lied through his teeth although they all knew the truth of it, and Tony, not really feeling it, laughed, right until a foot connected with his ribs.

“Leave it, boss,” one of the others outlaws mumbled. “'e's worth more alive.”

“I'm beginning to doubt that. Leaves one other option for us to become friends, Mr. Stark.”

“ _I_ very much doubt _that_ ,” Tony said. He already knew about the other option, could smell the sweet and smoky scent of the burning opium lump before he could see it.

He'd smoked opium once or twice, back when he'd still been a resident of New York and the night terrors had become unbearable and the guilt had worn him down enough to be desperate, but there was a reason why barb wire booze was his choice of medicine. Alcohol numbed him and that was the point of his addiction. He didn't want to feel, didn't want to face the bad dreams, didn't want to face himself.

It was so much easier to not care and not feel and just wait for the next person to call him a card shark at the casino to pull a gun that perhaps would quite literally have his name on it and end it all. Poetic justice. He’d been waiting for it for so long.

“Sorry,” he said, the smoke filling his nostrils and his eyes settling on a syringe that was readied in case the smoke wasn't going to help him along, “I'm never going to make a colt for anyone ever again.” Three days of this and they still didn't want to understand. Three days and he felt like tenderized meat.

Three days and he was sure that nobody was coming for him.

After all he'd left Fisk’s Casino, mostly voluntarily and drunk. Bruce knew him too well to think anything but the worst. He had probably been convinced already that Tony had fallen into the gorge in a drunken stupor... and the sheriff... Tony really didn't want to think of the sheriff. Rogers had a way of thinking the worst of him.

He slipped into a haze then, the sheriff the last thing on his mind.

Slowly at first, but then fast enough to never hit rock bottom.

A dragon was chasing him – or perhaps it was the other way around? He didn't care. He was flying, flying and then... Perhaps the dragon was calling his name in a familiar voice even as the fire was scorching him and nothing but a red and gold armor saved him from breaking his neck as he fell. _Tony!_

He pressed his eyes shut and perhaps he screamed. His ribs hurt, as if the dragon had really downed him like an annoying fly. The blood on his hands wasn't his own though and when he looked up the eyes of the dragon were the blue eyes of someone he knew, but he wasn't flying anymore he was sitting in a field of corpses clad in the uniform of the South and the rattling of the machine gun Tony had developed for the Union army sounded loud and haunting in his ears. The fog on the battlefield should smell like gunpowder but it had a gaggingly sweet scent to it and Tony couldn't stand it anymore. He tried to stumble up and run, get away, and maybe he did or he didn't, but his head hurt and he was on his knees now and although there was nothing but dead bodies around him he could hear voices.

“They're saying he was a perfect shot, before he drank himself out of wits,” a voice said uncomfortably loud and close to his ear.

”I don’t care. I only care if he’s breathing. He still has work to do.”

And then Tony looked down and one of the faces in the sea of dead soldiers swallowed by the fog was the face of Steve Rogers. The stink of blood nearly made him retch and then he sat and sat and sat, Roger’s head in his lap and rocking himself back and forth as the gunpowder heavy smoke made him wonder why he sheriff’s hair was too short and the uniform was blue and why the sheriff star had become white emblem on his chest where blood was seeping from gunshot wounds and more than anything he wanted to know why his hands were bound by shackles and the battlefield was gone and suddenly Tony himself was sitting alone on hard stone steps in front of a government building he’d never seen before, blood still on his hands, Roger’s lifeless body gone, but the haunting image lingering, and wondered.

Part of his mind was aware enough to know that he wasn’t here as he mumbled: “It wasn’t worth it,” and wasn’t sure who he was talking to - the soldier or Rogers or himself. He only knew he was feeling a great sense of loss. A sense of guilt that could never be repaid.

Then the dragon was back again, sitting in front of him, staring at him from blue eyes and Tony started laughing. And as the dragon swung itself into the air, Tony felt he could follow, even as it breathed fire at him, he knew couldn’t be harmed. He was wearing armor and nothing could get to him.

Finally it changed again and it was Tony, lying, unmoving inside a glass coffin, looking up at that same changed sheriff, older, shorter hair, angry expression. “He always loved you.”

The dragon breathed. “I always loved you. Always will.”

His thoughts were racing like the beat of his heart, that was trying to jump out of his chest.

“Wake up, so I can burn everything you worked so hard for.”

Same voice. Different voice. Sulfur in the air. Guilt in his heart.

A world was burning.

The dead eyes of Steve looked up at him again and a burning world was swallowed by darkness, dark black whale-like dragons in the sky and a round blueish star in the sky. He held his breath, didn't dare move hen he recognized the body of Natasha Barnes, clad in something black and body-fitting an indecent just feet away. Her eyes were open and just as dead as those of Rogers. He reached out to touch the face of the sheriff wearing the same strange blue suit with the star, but his hair and face were different again. Younger. He reached out, wanted to make sure he was still breathing, although it didn't look like the chances for it where good. 

Suddenly the dead body moved and a voice asked: “You could have saved us. Why didn't you do more?”

Then another world fell away into darkness.

He was building something in a cave, fire hot against his skin as the metal was melting, ready to take a new shape. His chest ached and his body burned, but survival mattered less than the thought of being avenged, of avenging all that had been hurt.

A shield was crashing down on his throat, ready to kill, only blocked by the armor.

“I am Iron Man.”

“It’s good to see you, Shellhead.” Hand on armored shoulder. Warmth of the touch never reaching skin.

Two old men were making their stand together in a cave, back to back, armor and shield, grey hair and the relief of being together again for the first time in too long and the last time in forever. _He still looks good,_ he thinks hazily. _After everything._

The dragon smiled and a kiss was brushed on his forehead, while Steve looked at him from another of a myriad of faces: “We should have gotten married years ago.” Tony’s heart welled with happiness and he wanted to keep that precious moment, wanted to hold on to it for eternity, but he was still falling, chasing, crashing.

Still sitting in the mud with dead soldiers all around him, smelling blood and death and decay.

Still looking down at Steve Rogers’ lifeless face as the sheriff lay in the redish dirt of the street, blood soaking his shirt, a whisper of “always loved you” in his ear that was spoken in his own voice or another and the world exploded around them as armor crashed against shield or armor crashed against armor and the only thought that survived it all was: “Never Steve. I can’t lose Steve.”

Breathing got unbearable. He choked and felt like burning.

 _The dragon,_ he thought, _by Doom, the dragon._

“Steve,” he groaned.

“The medicine man said it was safe.” 

“Does it look safe to you?”

And suddenly he was back in a mine shaft, smelling damp, stale air and barely having any feeling left in his fingers. The reflection of a gold-red mask on a silver, red and blue shield remained stuck in his mind as the reality of the situation crashed back in on him and he realized what had happened. 

His throat was so dry that he could only imagine the screams that must have sounded through the mine for hours. He had no idea what time of day it was or indeed what _day_. But he didn’t care as he breathed hard into the hay and croaked: “I’ll do it. Give me a forge and the right tools and I’ll do it.”

The men with their half-hidden faces stared at him like they’d finally gotten him where they wanted to have him, but he didn’t care. He had a plan.

A few years ago he had come to Timely to bury himself, to not forget and to be forgotten.

But if he was to be remembered for his name and the cruelty it had brought to this world whatever he did, then he at least wanted someone to know he was more than a sad drunk who’d been forced into the service of bandits and cutthroats.

* * *

The moment Tony started working his captors lost interest. They did not stop watching him, of course, they did not let him handle certain tools on his own. And he pretended that his hurting ribs and skull hindered his progress, when in fact the work finally gave him purpose and free hands. When his guards sat down to play cards he got on with the work and smiled as under the beats of his hammer the crude outline of a mask took shape. The hole that made up the mouth looked like a monstrous smile and he smiled back, recognizing himself.

“What do you need that for?” one man asked long after Tony had moved on to crafting a chestplate. 

“Have you e’er built weapons?” Tony slurred, although not much of the smoke lingered in his mind. 

“No,” the man said and frowned at him. “But I’ve seen a bunch.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, friend,” Tony said and kept his eyes on his work. “I’m building the tools I’ll need later.” Lying had never been a problem, especially not when he was conducting business with dangerous people. Telling half-truths was even easier.

His card loving, newly hired outlaw guards only saw what he wanted them to: a tired run down drunk who was about to give the last thing he had to give in this world so they could impress their new boss.

Although someone stood guard outside the mine at all times they only bound Tony’s hands again before they tossed him back on his uncomfortably resting place.

This time he was prepared.

Helpful tools had vanished in the hay hours before and his hands were free in minutes. But he bid his time. He had time. 

Stumbling through the dark he found the bits and pieces of metal armor that he fit together, piece by piece. They only had to hold till he'd finished up here.

He would be finished here soon, he thought, as he lit a torch and threw it towards the gunpowder in the corner and the sleeping guard woke, just before an explosion rippled through one of the mine shafts.

* * *

“Tony?”

By the time he woke up his ears were still ringing.

“Tony?” 

He pried his eyes open and with the smell of burned wood and charred stone and heated metal he thought for a moment he was seeing specters again. “Sheriff?”

Rogers leaned over him, his face serious. “What the hell were you thinking?”

He had no good answer to that he wanted to verbalize right now. His shoulder hurt. 

”We wouldn’t have found him, if he hadn’t made the whole thing crash down,” a less familiar voice said and Tony finally settled his eyes on Rogers’ deputy, Barnes.

“We need to stop the bleeding.” Banner appeared in his line of vision and his comment suddenly provided the explanation for the burning pain. “And let's get him out of this... thing.”

Hazily he thought, _I don’t even remember, getting shot._ But the metal was bend inwards at the shoulder joint and he could smell the blood.

Rogers glanced at him with a quizzical expression. “A mask?”

“Nice to know where your concern lies, sheriff.” He groaned and tried to sit up, but he was tapped in the crude armor he'd haphazardly built for himself. Banner and Rogers made short work of the straps that held it together.

“Why a mask?” Rogers was holding it up to inspect it and Tony only slowly became aware of his deputy and Hank Pym being busy rounding up the bandits that had held Tony here and Banner had already busied himself with Tony's wound

_I wanted you to see me. For more than a drunk. For who I could have been._

He didn't say it. Didn’t want to explain about the crazy nightmares he couldn’t explain.

“Didn't rightfully expect anyone to come,” he said instead.

“If you don't want anyone to come after you, don't go missin' again. Stupid to walk out of the Casino, drunk out of yer wits. Nine day, Stark. You were gone for nine days.”

“We didn't think we'd find anything but your corpse,” Bruce elaborated, while Rogers stared at the mask as if it was a skull, “especially when we heard the rumble of a mountain crashing down.” The sheriff’s pose reminded Tony of a stage performance of Hamlet he'd seen in New York a long time ago. In another life perhaps. 

“I don't even remember that part,” he admitted, thinking about he’d walked out of the casino in a alcohol induced haze, like a voice was calling him to come to the dessert. He remembered other things. Sweet, smoky smell and dragon fire, dead men and love and a sheriff lying broken and bleeding in the dirt. Dead.

_He's alive. He's safe. I can keep him safe._

He had his armor now. The idea of it. He had a plan.

“Come on,” Rogers said and reached down to help him up. It hurt and he really just wanted to fall unconscious or retch and die. “Need a hand?” he was asked before the sheriff forced him into the saddle, mounting the horse in front of Tony. “Hold on.”

“I'm injured. Can't you wait with ordering me around again till I have a drink in hand?”

Rogers made an unhappy sound and saluted Barnes, who was going to stay behind with Pym to take care of the trussed up outlaws. “At least the sulking will be at an end now that you can pull him out of the saloon again every night,” Barnes quipped as they passed him.

Instead of answering the sheriff spurred the horse into a trot, setting them back on their path towards Timely. The rocky motion did nothing to make Tony feel better.

”Hold on,” Rogers repeated. “I’ll get you home.”

* * *

Arm in a sling, bottle in the other hand he stood in front of his broken automaton and thought about giving it a coin. The bits and pieces of dreams were lingering and he had no hope of falling into a dreamless sleep. Staying awake was the only option.

He was feeling feverish and out of sorts.

“Shouldn't you be resting?” Rogers asked and sniffed. Tony hadn't even heard him approach, but he'd been aware of everyone watching him with more attention than usual.

He shrugged and, putting the bottle down to stand next to his boot on the porch, finally gave his Vision a coin.

A card fell out. It read: “You’ve seen the future.”

He crumbled it in his fist. _And what am I going to do about it?_ he thought.

“I wanted to return this to you.” Rogers held up the crude mask and Tony took it. He already knew how to make it better, how to enhance it. He had read about some experiments with electricity and thought _that_ would come in handy.

“Thanks.” He took it, surprised how cool it was to the touch.

“Let me get you back inside,” Rogers said and opened the door for him as if he was a maiden at a stomping hall. “You look like you're going to fall over, Stark.”

 _Tony,_ he thought, realizing for the first time that Rogers had called out his first name when he'd been waking up. Worried. Maybe. Like Tony mattered.

He stood frozen in his tracks, like he was back there in the nightmares, hearing words of love and loss and anger, and then Rogers smiled at him, encouragingly and friendly, like he'd seen Tony for the first time today, for the first time ever, maybe.

“Brave thing you did back there, fighting your way out of that alone,” he said. “I'm glad you're alive.”

They eyed each other up for a moment and Tony thought of all the crazy things he'd dreamed when he'd breathed the smoke. The only thing that seemed to matter was the dreadful sense of loss when he remembered the vision of Rogers' dead body and a broken voice saying: “Why didn't you do more?” 

Finally he shrugged, breaking the spell. “You know me, I'm a hell fired nuisance.”

“That you are,” Rogers agreed easily, but there was no malice in it. He sounded... fond, perhaps and that was a new and scary thought.

So Tony shook his head to clear it and tried to move past the idea before it could take hold of him. Tomorrow Rogers would drag him from the bar and berate him and everything would go back to normal.

But the mask would sit on his workbench and the idea it represented would not simply go away.

“I hope I can get the whole story out of you?”

Tony shrugged, his throat suddenly dry. Rogers smiled his wry smile and Tony finally stepped into his own home as if the other man had invited him in.

 _I won't let it happen. I'll never let it happen. I_ can do more.

Tomorrow was another day to keep the night terrors at bay. And the future. Perhaps also the future.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cube of Destiny (Destroyer of Worlds Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9806942) by [Neverever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever)




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